West Coast jazz refers to various styles of jazz music that developed around Los Angeles and San Francisco during the 1950s. West Coast jazz is often seen as a sub-genre of cool jazz, which featured a less frenetic, calmer style than bebop or hard bop. The music tended to be more heavily arranged, and more often composition-based. While this style was prominent for a while, it was by no means the only style of jazz played on the West Coast, which exhibited more variety than could be conveyed by a simple name.

Development[edit]

During 1949 and 1950, baritone saxophonist Gerry Mulligan participated in the Miles Davis Nonet, contributing arrangements to the recordings that were later compiled as Birth of the Cool (1957). In 1952, Mulligan, who had relocated to California, formed an innovative and successful pianoless quartet with trumpeter Chet Baker, drummer Chico Hamilton, and bassist Bob Whitlock.[1][3]:304 Mulligan would later form a decet based on the Birth of the Cool nonet.[1]

Manne suggested that these musicians' relaxed lifestyle in California was reflected in a laid-back, relaxed approach to jazz.[7]Bob Rusch concurs:

The West coast sound perhaps didn't have the gravitas that the East coast had, but, after all, these were Californians enjoying the sun and the surf and the extent that celebrity offered itself through the studio work that the entertainment industry was offering. So I think, you know, you think of California as sun and surf, you think of New York City as cement and grit, and the music somewhat reflected that. One better than the other? Depends what you want.[8]

Chico Hamilton, during the 1950s, led an ensemble that – unusually for a jazz group – included a cellist, Fred Katz.[6] Tanner, Gerow, and Megill liken Hamilton's music to chamber music, and have noted that Hamilton's "subtle rhythmic control and use of different drum pitches and timbres" was well-suited for this style of music.[6]

While many Los Angeles area jazz musicians, particularly the former members of the Herman and Kenton bands, found regular employment in broadcast and motion picture studios, most of these musicians were white, leading to accusations that the studios deliberately excluded African Americans.[1] The situation was a contributing factor toward the integration of the Los Angeles chapters of the American Federation of Musicians during the early 1950s.[9][10] Pianist Marl Young recalled that in 1950,

as far as I knew, there were no blacks working regularly in the industry, especially on the networks – ABC, CBS and NBC. [Estelle Edson] asked me if the fact that the Musicians Unions were segregated contributed to the scarcity of blacks in the industry. It certainly could have been a contributing factor in that all the contracts for employment of musicians in the broadcast and motion picture studios were negotiated by the then all-white union, Local 47. The black union, Local 767, merely adopted the scales negotiated by Local 47, if and when a black musician got a studio call.[9]

California Hard[edit]

While West Coast jazz is often likened to the cool style, a number of Los Angeles musicians, locally known as "Hard Swingers," "blew bop as tough as anything emerging out of Detroit and New York…."[1] In later years, their music was known as "California Hard."[1]Roy Carr notes that this is not surprising: by the late 1940s, the Central Avenue scene had the most bebop musicians outside of New York.[1]Max Roach and Clifford Brown, Shelly Manne, and Curtis Counce all established harder-sounding bands in Los Angeles.[1]

Sound[edit]

West Coast jazz sometimes featured a rhythm section that omitted the use of a piano, guitar, or any chordal instrument, tending to a more open and freer sound, as exemplified by the Gerry Mulligan collection The Original Quartet with Chet Baker (Blue Note, 1998). Another characteristic is the inclusion of non-standard jazz instruments such as the French horn and tuba. Gil Evans' arrangement on the Birth of the Cool album featured these instruments at a time when the West Coast style was emerging.[11]

Reception[edit]

Tanner, Gerow, and Megill are largely dismissive of the term "West Coast jazz". As it often refers to Gerry Mulligan and his associates in California, "West Coast" merely becomes synonymous with "cool jazz", although Lester Young, Claude Thornhill, and Miles Davis were based in New York.[6] At the same time, many musicians associated with West Coast jazz "were much more involved in a hotter approach to jazz. Communication being what it is, it is hardly likely that any style of jazz was fostered exclusively in one area."[6]